Umberto Eco, 1932-2016

Duffel

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35620368

Umberto Eco, the Italian philosopher, professor, and novelist, died in his home earlier today. He was 84 years old.

Eco was particularly known for his ability to use fiction as a vehicle for discussing philosophical subjects. He was a polymath whose writing often covered subjects normally esoteric and inaccessible - such as early-modern European occultism, monastic scholarship, Baroque military history, or literary theory - in a way that was accessible to a wide pool of readers. His novels often blended multiple forms of writing, twisting genres, literary styles, and chronological eras seamlessly into a coherent whole. Many of his writings draw heavily on Italian history, both in the premodern past and from his own life's recollections.

Some of his more well-known works of fiction include Foucault's Pendulum, The Prague Cemetery, and The Name of the Rose. Eco was also an academic with an extensive list of nonfiction publications on subjects ranging from literary criticism and theory to history, and had even written a few children's books. English readers are primarily familiar with him through William Weaver's translations; Weaver himself died in 2013.

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I have to say this one is pretty upsetting. This year seems to be a bad one for losing people a lot of us really did not want to lose. Reading The Name of the Rose changed my views on literature more than most of a four-year-degree in the subject ever did. He will be sadly missed.

themightypuck

I really loved Foucault's Pendulum. He was a very funny writer. RIP.

surrealitycheck

we need to start writing fictionalised biographies of him asap

Desktop Hippie

A terrible loss to literature. There really isn't anyone else who writes quite like he wrote. I'll hate referring to him in the past tense.

Bogart

2016 continues its record attempt at sucking.

miscellaneousinsanity

https://twitter.com/WarrenIsDead/status/700832886115606528

Anarchy Rules!

The only one of his I have read is Baudolino, and I think I was far too young to understand it (I think I was about 14). I always feel a bit bad that I only go back over a bibliography/filmography/discography when someone has died.

Duffel

Anarchy Rules! wrote: »

The only one of his I have read is Baudolino, and I think I was far too young to understand it (I think I was about 14). I always feel a bit bad that I only go back over a bibliography/filmography/discography when someone has died.

I wouldn't feel too bad about this... I mean, just think about how many great artists/musicians/writers died before you were even born.

Apparently, from some of the more recent articles I've read, he'd been suffering from cancer for a while.